Willer Tomaz, a lawyer linked to RioPag, lost BR163m ($30.6m) betting with Blaze in 2025, after wagering BR10bn through the platform during the year.
The payment of BR67.79m in profits and dividends from Embrasis to lawyer Willer Tomaz in 2024 has shed new light on his relationship with RioPag, the company that held a monopoly on payment intermediation between bettors and betting operators in Rio de Janeiro.
According to the report, Embrasis is the sole owner of RioPag. Tomaz had previously said he was only an indirect investor in RioPag through another company and described the dividends he received as insignificant. He did not respond to questions about the discrepancy.
RioPag obtained its position through a tender in which a competing bid was disqualified because it contained two decimal places instead of the three required by the tender rules.
Rio subsequently accepted 20.000% of betting revenue from RioPag rather than the 26.00% offered by the competing Idea Maker, according to the report.
The arrangement was later affected by changes to Loterj's accreditation rules and an STF decision in early 2025 that prevented bets licensed in Rio from operating throughout Brazil.
Before that decision, betting activity through Rio operators generated billions in wagers, with RioPag reportedly earning more than BR30m per month.
Tomaz's own betting activity has also drawn attention. According to the report, He wagered BR10bn through Blaze during 2025, with his activity exceeding BR13bn by June 2026. Blaze said he lost BR144m during the period, while a separate report said his losses in 2025 reached BR163m.
Court documents reportedly contain exchanges between Willer Tomaz and the Blaze concierge responsible for his account, in which the two discussed practices prohibited under Brazil’s federal online betting regulations. The conversations included the use of cryptocurrency and arrangements allowing Tomaz to make transactions without the facial recognition required by the regulations.
Tomaz said he would not comment on information obtained from tax and banking records and said his lawyers had filed a criminal complaint with the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office concerning the disclosure
